


Burned Risotto and Failure Cookies

by fructosebat



Series: Food = Caring = Food [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: AU, F/M, Minor Violence, Non-Graphic Violence, tw: assault, tw: non-sexual assault
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-04-09
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-18 17:57:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 14,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1437421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fructosebat/pseuds/fructosebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Thor wants me to go with him to Asgard sometime—he knows how much you’ve been missing me,” Darcy said as they stopped in front of her apartment building. Digging in her jacket pocket for her keys, she looked up at Loki with a grin. “So thoughtful.”</p><p>	“Well, it has been nearly a year and a half since I’ve seen you,” he said, reaching over her head to push the door open, now that it was unlocked. “A year was bad enough—I must be going mad by now.” Darcy unlocked the mailbox and pulled out some bills. “More mad, I mean.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Fade In

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, readers, if you haven't I really suggest reading _With Pie,_ which is the first work in this series, otherwise lots of stuff won't make sense to you about this story.
> 
> You should also know that this story will continue to be AU from the movies, and will NOT be taking any of the events of Captain America: The Winter Soldier into account (SQUEEEE about that movie though, omg!). YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

\---

Hail, friend Darcy!

How fare you in the city of Boston? All remains well here in the Large Apple. Jane’s work continues, and has surpassed my knowledge of magic, but that is all right because our friend Dr. Selvig has once more joined us in the lab! He has been visiting one of your Midgardian mind doctors, and is much improved in his temperament. We are very grateful to have him back!

I regularly go visiting at the Tower of Stark and see my compatriots Tony and Steve (you remember Steve, and you have met the Man of Iron, have you not?). Bruce Banner also has work there, but he is often not to be found. I think the man desires quiet more than most, which is understandable for one who spends much time with Tony. I think Sif and the Warriors Three would greatly benefit from Tony’s company, do you agree? 

I have made plans to visit my brother in Asgard come Saturday. Do you have a message you would like me to give him for you? He does well, from what I can see, although he keeps mostly to his chambers. I have tried to draw him out, and while he is cordial, I don’t think it is me he most wishes to see. Perhaps I shall have a discussion with my father about a visit to Asgard; I know that Jane wishes to see my home, and you would be welcome to come along as well. 

I hope all is well with you at your school of law! When I asked Jane to tell me of your 'Boston,' she said “wicked piss-ah,” which I assume is some sort of unpleasant beast or ruffian, so keep on your guard, and remember to carry that portable lightning stick of yours.

Farewell,  
Thor

\---

Smiling, Darcy clicked out of the email and checked the time: five of six. Resting her chin on her palm, elbow braced on the table, she watched an irate customer harassing one of the staff at the counter.

“ _No._ I said I wanted _three_ shots of espresso, and _extra_ foam,” said the young man in the skinny jeans and extra-large-framed glasses. 

“My apologies,” said the barista, retrieving the beverage. Darcy observed as he put in the extra espresso shot and the extra foam, and then as he held one hand to the cup for just a fraction of a second too long, leaving the liquid inside bubbling. The barista put a cover on top of the drink, and handed it back to the customer. 

“Right, _thanks,_ ” said the customer in a sarcastic tone, and reached for the drink. When he touched the cup, he pulled his hand back sharply with a hiss.

“Sorry, sir, the beverage is very hot—here, take a sleeve for your cup,” said the barista with a contrite smile.

Two minutes later, when the shifts changed in the shop, Loki hung up his apron. Darcy bounded up to the counter. “Hi,” she said, smiling up at him.

“Hi,” he said, and took her hand as they walked out into the spring twilight.

When they were a (reasonably) safe distance from the store, Darcy said, “So what did you do to that guy’s coffee?”

She saw Loki grin out of the corner of her eye. “Just as he asked: another shot of espresso, extra foam.”

“Yeah, but what else, though?” Darcy swung their hands back and forth between them. “C’moooon. You totally zapped it, I saw you.”

“As I told him: we do serve very hot beverages at The Boost. Though his might stay hot for rather longer than most beverages would.”

“Nice!”

“And then it might suddenly become ice cold.”

“Double whammy,” said Darcy, approving. “Don’t get fired, though.”

“They’ve kept me this long,” Loki shrugged. “I couldn’t fill out any paperwork, but apparently I’m invaluable. It’s my old-world charm,” he drawled.

“Please, they totes feel sorry for you. You don’t even have a—” she reached out to hit the walk button at the intersection, and her messenger bag slipped down her arm. Loki took this opportunity to nab it from her and sling it across his own shoulder. Darcy protested, “Hey!–don’t have—um—a social security number. That’s why they pay you under the table. They know you’re an illegal alien.”

“They just don’t know which kind.” The lights changed and they avoided puddles on their way across the street. “Your place?” Loki asked. “I’ll cook you dinner if you let me stay over,” he said, as if this was not already the standing arrangement.

“I’ll let you cook me dinner if you’ll stay over,” countered Darcy. “’Cause your brother’s gonna visit you in Asgard on Saturday.”

Loki made a noise of frustration. “I’ll have to trade my shift with Yolanda.”

“Thor wants me to go with him to Asgard sometime—he knows how much you’ve been missing me,” she said as they stopped in front of her apartment building. Digging in her jacket pocket for her keys, she looked up at Loki with a shit-eating grin. “So thoughtful.”

“Well, it has been nearly a year and a half since I’ve seen you,” he said, reaching over her head to push the door open, now that it was unlocked. “A year was bad enough—I must be going mad by now.” Darcy unlocked the mailbox and pulled out some bills. “More mad, I mean.”

***

As promised, after Loki's first-ever day working at a coffee shop, he and Darcy had met up and gone out to a nearby bistro. They spent a tense few minutes staring at menus before Darcy finally blurted, "This is so messed up." She put the menu down unread. "What are we doing here?" 

“Eating dinner?” Loki’s face seemed placid, but Darcy could feel his leg jiggling under the table.

"Don't be a smartass."

"Getting...re-acquainted?"

"I guess," she said, and tapped her fingers on the table, pursing her lips. “You were my best friend, you know? For a year! And then…” she gestured skyward. "For a year." She definitely wasn't going to mention the kissing.

“Best friend?” he said, with a knowing grin.

“By ‘best friend’ I actually meant ‘mortal enemy.’”

“Easy mistake to make.”

“Uh, _yah._ ” There was a moment of silence as Darcy stared across the table at him, at a loss. It had been a year since she’d seen him, and she’d tried to throw herself into schoolwork and friends and family, but there’d been this _gap_ where he’d been in her life, something she’d never encountered before, not since Grandma Edy died, only different and _confusing,_ and they’d hardly ever had a conversation before without some physical barrier in between them, until, y'know, mortal peril followed by gooey emotions and _kissing_ and now he was just _sitting there_ in normal-person clothes, staring at her with an unfathomable expression, and— “Did you get a haircut?” 

Letting out an overwhelmed chuckle, he said, “You’re not making this easy, you know.”

“ _I’m_ not making this easy? _I’m—_ ”

“Would you two like something to drink?” came a waitress’s voice, and they both turned and blinked at her owlishly.

“No, thank you,” said Darcy, finally. “We need a few more minutes.”

“Okay,” the waitress said, smiling. “I’ll be back soon.”

Shifting in her seat to face Loki again, Darcy wiped a hand down her face, exasperated. Then with a harsh sigh she suddenly extended her arm across the table, offering him her hand. Keeping his eyes locked on hers, Loki grabbed her hand, and held on like it was a lifeline. 

It was hard to breathe for a moment. The air seemed charged with electricity.

“You hungry?” Darcy asked.

“ _Really_ not hungry.”

“We should go.”

“We should,” he agreed, and both stood abruptly with much scraping of chairs. Not letting go of his hand, Darcy snagged her jacket off the back of her chair, and apologized breathlessly to the hostess on their way out the door.

***

Darcy was not a cook in any way, shape, or form. There was a reason she'd only ever _bought_ Loki pastries, since she primarily subsisted on takeout and pre-made food. Loki had taken it upon himself to ‘learn Midgardian cuisine.’ He said he’d never been much into cooking in Asgard ("I should have expected that, I mean, you _are_ only, like, seventeen." "You're never going to let that drop, are you.") except over a campfire, but that he'd better learn now or they'd both starve.

“What’s for dinner?” Darcy asked, reclaiming her messenger bag and beginning to unpack it on the coffee table. 

“Mushroom risotto,” he announced, with great verve. 

“Fancy!”

“Tablet?”

“Using it,” sang Darcy.

“Damn,” said Loki. He was getting better at cursing in English. “Laptop?”

“All yours,” she said, handing it over the top of the couch to him. “Go wild, Iron Chef.”

“Thanks,” he said, disappearing into the tiny kitchenette. "Sure you won't help?" he called.

"Gotta study!"

He tsked. "Study," he grumbled, half to himself. There was the sound of some clicking on the laptop, and the refrigerator door opening and closing.

Darcy paused in unpacking her schoolbooks. Sometimes she had to stop and recalibrate her thoughts, ‘cause this was all so… _domestic_. What even was her life? She had a millennium-old extraterrestrial who the Vikings used to worship as a deity cooking mushroom risotto in her itty-bitty Cambridge apartment, using a recipe he’d found on the internet. Taking a deep breath, Darcy shook off the feeling of surrealism and forced herself to focus on case analyses.

***

They’d barely made it through the door of the apartment before they were kissing each other so fiercely their teeth clacked together. Darcy gripped Loki’s shirt to pull him closer, and found herself pressed up against the closed door.

He smelled just as good as she’d remembered.

As his hands drifted into her hair, knocking her cap to the floor, she let her fingertips brush the skin under the hem of his shirt. He drew in a sharp breath, and she used his distraction to dip her tongue into his mouth.

For a few long moments they were each so caught up in kissing the other that they didn’t notice the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs, and didn’t realize anyone else was nearby until the door moved against Darcy’s back, forcing them both to stumble farther into the living room. 

“Fuck,” said Darcy, laughing, as her roommate stepped inside and flipped on the lights. “Hi, Sid.” All stared at each other for a moment, Darcy with a giddy smile on her face, until she realized one of her hands was still tangled up in Loki’s shirt, and she quickly pulled it back.

“Hi, Darcy,” said Sid, mystified. “Uhhh…” He looked pointedly at Loki.

“Oh! Sorry. This is my, um, old friend, uh—”

“Logan Freeson,” Loki cut in, holding out a hand for Sid to shake. He took it, still boggled. “Lovely to meet you. Sorry about—the door.”

“No biggie,” said Sid.

“We’re just gonna—” Darcy said, snagging Loki’s hand and dragging him into her room. “’Logan’?” she said in hushed tones, once they were alone. 

“It’s what I told the people at the coffee shop,” he said, closing the door behind him. “What, you don’t like it?”

Making a split-second decision that further discussion of Loki’s alias could wait, Darcy said, “Let’s do more of what we were just doing.” She snagged the front of his shirt again, drawing him backwards. “Only horizontal.”

***

Darcy rubbed her eyes, which were getting tired from staring at her books for so long, when there was the sound of an extra-loud jingling of keys outside the door. Rolling her head to the side from where it was propped on the couch, she saw Sid peeking his head cautiously around the door. 

“Everything safe in here?” he asked. “Not…walking in on anything?”

“ _No,_ ” she said, exasperated. “We haven’t been making out in common areas in, like, forever.”

“Two weeks,” corrected Sid, coming fully into the room and dropping his backpack by the door. “And I’m still kinda too grossed out to sit on the couch.”

This was fair. Sid had frequently caught them necking like randy teenagers in various compromising positions around the apartment. First on the door, then on the couch (twice), then against the wall, then several times in her bedroom when they’d forgotten to shut the door, and then one memorable time in the bathroom when she was brushing her teeth, and she’d pointed out that she never saw Loki brushing his teeth, so how did his breath always taste so good, and then it turned out that he used _freaking magic_ to make clean his mouth, the _cheater_ , and he said he couldn’t do that to Darcy’s mouth because he didn’t know what it would do to a human, and somehow she’d wound up triple-checking to make sure that his mouth still tasted good…

Shaking her head to clear out the recollections, Darcy said, “Lo—” She caught herself. “Logan’s cooking us risotto.” 

“Cool.” He motioned to the coffee table. “You working in here?”

“I can go in my room if you want,” she said, moving to gather her study materials.

“Naw, it’s cool, the game doesn’t start until 8:00.”

“Sid!” Loki poked his head out from the kitchen. “Risotto?”

“Awesome, bro.”

Loki gave him a thumb’s up and disappeared again. 

Say what you like about Loki, but Darcy had been pretty impressed with how quickly he picked up on human mannerisms and slang—way more quickly than his brother, anyway. The relentlessly-cheerful Thor had had to be walked through most of his introduction to Midgardian culture, but once Loki had discovered the power of Google he hadn’t needed any hand-holding. Hell, when Darcy had told him, “Oh, yeah, Sid is trans, so just remember to use his correct pronouns,” he’d merely absorbed, looked it up later, and didn’t bat an eye when Sid took off his binder to relax at the end of the day.

Darcy kept meaning to ask Loki if the gender-bending Norse myths about him were true. He’d told her that 90% of the stories about him and his family were total fabrications, but he hadn’t said _which_ 90%.

Feeling drained, Darcy glanced down at her homework and decided that, since she didn’t have the class again for another couple of days, she could afford a five-minute study break.

“I haven’t forgotten, you know,” said Loki as she rounded the corner to the kitchen.

“Forgotten what?” She snagged his glass of water from the counter and took a sip.

“Saturday. It’s your birthday. I didn’t forget.” He sneaked a peek at her, smiling, one hand still moving to stir the contents of the pot. “I’ll find a way back in time.”

Loki had to make periodic visits to Asgard, so as to keep up the illusion that he hadn’t left at all. Every few weeks he’d head off for a few days, through the secret-realm-passage-whatever he used to get there, to check on the spell he’d put up in his chambers and to make brief appearances to other people. The first time he’d had to leave, five months ago, Darcy had understandably been a bit worried. After all, the last time he’d left the planet he hadn’t come back for a year. This time, though, he only went away for two days, and then when he came back they had some excellent reunion sex (maybe not as good as the Loki-was-off-planet-and-in-prison-for-a-year-and-also-it’s-the-first-time-after-a-buttload-of-intellectual-foreplay reunion sex, but still pretty goddamned good).

“You don’t have to make a big deal out of it or anything,” said Darcy, uncharacteristically trying to hide behind the water glass. “It’s fine.”

“Here, stir,” Loki said, grasping her hand and placing it on the wooden spoon. Putting down the glass, Darcy shuffled into his place and stirred as he ducked by her to reach into the ‘fridge.

“I’m just saying, I’ve never really been—dating—anyone. For my birthday,” she said, trying for casual. “But I don’t expect any grand gestures or anything. Like, I get that birthdays aren’t important for your—your people or whatever, so,” she continued, realizing she was babbling but somehow unable to stop. “So. I mean, we’ve only been together five months, which is—is a blink of an eye to you, I get it—” He reached around her to shake some parmesan cheese into the pot, then stood waiting for her to turn around, a faint smile on his face. Mildly mortified, she pivoted to face him. “You’re really rockin’ that apron, you know.”

“I am,” he said.

“Smug bastard,” she grinned and yanked him down to her level for a kiss. A few silent seconds passed as things got a little more involved, then Darcy let go of the spoon to press herself closer, not caring that she was probably getting the food detritus that was on Loki’s apron all down her front. She felt the container of parmesan cheese pressed up against her back, and smiled into Loki’s mouth—

A loud explosion of sound blasted from the living room as the TV turned on, and they broke away from each other, laughing. “Sid is starting to fight back!” she said.

“Can you blame him?”

“He should just be grateful for the sound-proofing thingie you put on my bedroom.”

Sid yelled from the other room: “You guys better not have burned my dinner!” Loki cursed in Asgardian and scrambled for the spoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh yeah, I'm back.
> 
> So this fic is gonna be a bit shippy, don't know if you've noticed. Primarily it's about Darcy and Loki's relationship, though other things will eventually happen, too. If all goes well, I'll be updating fairly frequently, so yayyy! Very excited.


	2. Gifts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Oh my God.” She examined the rich, textured fabric, the fancy cloth ribbon. “Oh my God. Did you bring me an _Asgard_ present?”
> 
> He just grinned at her, smug.

If there were a rating scale from 1 to 10 for nightmares, Darcy would rate the ones where she had to give a speech on a subject she didn’t know at about a 2 or a 3. Then there were the mid-level ones, where something was chasing her and she just—couldn’t—run—fast enough—those were probably hovering around a 5 or a 6. A 9 or a 10 would only be reserved for the ones where spiders would eat their way out of her eyeballs and crawl all over her body by the hundreds.

From what Darcy could tell, Loki’s nightmares usually ranged from a 12 to a 15, and likely contained things that she hoped she was never able to imagine. She thought most of them probably had to do with what had happened to him after falling from Asgard. He still wouldn’t tell her much about it, but hell, it was his business, and if he didn’t want to share, she certainly wasn’t going to force him. Honestly, if it caused the kind of screaming nightmares he had, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

Fortunately, _those_ nightmares were few and far between—only two in all the nights he’d slept over her place in the _five months_ since he’d been back on Earth. It wasn’t like he was barging into PTSD territory or anything. But those two times—well, the first time had scared Darcy, she wasn’t going to lie. And the second time, they could both only be glad that her scarf was the only flammable object hanging on the back of her door that night.

The night after the slightly-crispy mushroom risotto, though, Darcy was awakened by Loki suddenly sitting bolt upright in the bed with a sharp gasp. Without opening her eyes, Darcy reached up to his shoulders and petted him clumsily. “S’all right, you’re on Earth, everything’s cool…” When he didn’t lie back down, she forced her eyes open. By the light of the streetlamp outside her window, she could see Loki was staring into the middle distance, brow creased as if he was searching for something. He wasn’t breathing hard, though, like one does after a nightmare. “Bad dream?” asked Darcy blearily. 

“No…”

Grasping his shoulder, Darcy flailed herself upright. “Wuzzit.”

“There’s…something.” Lifting a hand, Loki flicked his wrist and a little wisp of yellow light rose from a fingertip. Bringing his finger to his mouth, he blew on the light and it went zooming away through the wall.

“’The hell?” 

“I sensed something,” he explained, tilting his head towards her.

“A disturbance in the force?”

“Ha,” said Loki, who had watched Star Wars the week before. “No.” The little yellow light came whizzing back into the room, spiraling around their heads before landing back above his finger. “Something has…”

“Exploded? Um…activated?”

“…awakened.”

There was a long moment, in which Darcy briefly fell asleep on Loki’s shoulder, before jerking back into consciousness. “Well, that was ominous as fuck. Sleep time?”

Loki fixed her with a look that, even in the dim light of the bedroom, she could tell meant ‘Are you kidding me right now?’

“C’mon.” She tugged at his arm as she fell backwards into the bed. “Worry about spooky things in the morning. Not as spooky then.”

“Hmm.” Without further comment, he lay down and they curled up together, and Darcy, at least, went back to sleep.

***

It was the worst birthday Darcy could remember. Except for her seventh, when she went flying off her brand-new neon green bicycle and broke her arm, though that one was kind of saved ‘cause she got to pick the color of her cast (neon green, _duh_ ). This day, though, _this day_. First she spent enough hours buried in her law books that she got a nasty headache. Then Linda called out sick from the boutique, so Darcy had to go into work. _Then_ when she got out of work, Monique, the friend who was meant to take her out for birthday drinks, had to cancel because her brother was being evicted from his house (which obviously sucked for her brother, and Monique couldn’t really have prevented that, _but still_ ). _And then_ her cell phone ran out of juice, right around the time her parents and her sister would normally have called to wish her a happy birthday.

When she finally got home, headache holding a heavy metal concert in her skull, there was no one there. Sid was out of town for the weekend, visiting his folks, and there was no whatever-Loki-was-to-her (she couldn’t bring herself to call anyone over 100 years old a ‘boyfriend’) to cuddle her or have excellent headache-curing birthday sex with her. 

No cake. No sex. No birthday love. “Fucking bogus,” said Darcy, and collapsed into her bed.

Hours later, still in her work clothes, Darcy awoke to pitch black and the sound of her bedroom door slamming open. The lights clicked on, and she covered her eyes with her hand, scowling at the brightness. “ _What?_ ” she demanded.

“You weren’t answering your cell. I thought—” Loki cut himself off, then much more quietly shut the door behind him, flipping off the light switch and instead sending up one of those glowing blue orbs that he made to hover over the bed. 

“My phone died.” Darcy flomped back into her pillow. She heard Loki move closer to the bed, and felt him sit down next to her. He placed his hand on her back.

“Happy birthday,” he said softly.

Darcy made a complaining noise into her pillow.

“I brought you something. Come on, come out.” Grumbling, Darcy shifted herself so she’d wrapped her arms around Loki’s waist, her head against his side. “Did you have a bad day?” She nodded mutely. “Here, this’ll cheer you up. Come on.”

Grumpy-face fully charged, Darcy sat up and faced him, and then watched him struggle to stifle a smile. “Hey. My hair is _adorably mussed,_ okay? I am the _birthday girl,_ which means that ‘rats’-nest bedhead’ is actually ‘seductively tousled.’”

“Here.” He pushed a small, cloth-wrapped box into her hand.

“Oh my God.” She examined the rich, textured fabric, the fancy cloth ribbon. “Oh my God. Did you bring me an _Asgard_ present?”

He just grinned at her, smug.

“You fucker. Now all the gifts I get you are gonna suck in comparison.”

“I liked the hat you got me for your Yule holiday."

"You never wear it!" To be fair, she'd mostly gotten it so she could see his face when he tore open the paper and found a suede beret inside. 

"I...misplaced it."

"A likely story."

"Open your gift!”

“Okay, okay! God.” Carefully, she untied the ribbon and set aside the fabric, revealing a carved wooden box. “Oh, man!” she scoffed, smiling in disbelief. Inside the box was—

“Wow. Um, wow. Shit. Um, wow, thank you, I actually have to pee—just woke up, you know.” She bolted for the bathroom and shut the door, not daring to look back. “Fuck,” Darcy sighed to herself, closing the lid of the toilet and sitting down on it. She switched on the bathroom light, stared at what was in the box, then switched the light back off so she wouldn’t have to look. After a moment’s deep breathing, she turned the light back on.

No guy had ever, _ever_ given her jewelry before, and this was a perfect, antique-looking silver pendant, a round coin-looking dealie with gray-blue stones inset in it in the shape of a crescent. The designs on it were intricate, and it had clearly been handmade _some time ago_. It was quite likely this pendant had been around longer than Darcy had.

Setting the pendant, still in its box, on the sink, Darcy buried her face in her hands.

After a long moment spent trying to contend with the idea of the necklace and all it implied, she forced herself to look in the box again, at the beautiful glittering pendant in the midst of a dull, mildly grungy Midgardian bathroom. Steeling herself, she gently extracted the pendant and its chain, and fastened the necklace around her throat. She peered down at the pendant briefly, cupping it in her palm, then caught her own eye, warily, in the mirror.

Oh, _man._

Leaning over, she flushed the toilet, then opened the door to find Loki standing right outside it. “Creeper much?”

“You all right?”

“Great! Thanks for the necklace. It’s pretty hideous, but I think I’ll keep it.” She smiled at him, and he swooped in and kissed her, then backed away laughing.

“Urgh, sleep-breath!”

“I think you’ll find that _birthday girl_ breath tastes like ambrosia,” said Darcy, sticking her nose in the air. “Now where’s my cake?”

***

It had only taken a few days before Loki decided to stop claiming to be an impersonator of himself—he found out that the only types of parties that would want to hire a Loki impersonator were not _pleasant_ parties. It didn’t much matter anyway, for several reasons. One: not too many people knew what Loki looked like, since most pictures circulated of him after the Chitauri invasion were blurry, and showed him with his helmet on. Two: people saw what they wanted to see, for the most part, and most normal people, on spotting a Loki-look-alike, would brush it off, since obviously Loki was not out walking around in Eastern Massachusetts—he was in prison. Everyone knew that. 

So for the most part, Loki was free to walk around looking like himself, which was to say: a tall, absurdly pale dude in jeans and a button-down shirt, black hair back in a short ponytail, looking like nothing so much as a jazz musician. 

Honestly, Darcy would almost be embarrassed to be seen with him, if that were the sort of thing she’d ever be embarrassed about (which it wasn’t).

The cover story they’d worked out was that ‘Logan’ had grown up in a teeny-tiny town in the farthest reaches of Norway, which was the reason he knew so little about pop culture: no television or internet, lots of reindeer. It was an adjustment for Darcy to call him ‘Logan’ in public, but then, everything was an adjustment since he’d returned. Fortunately, Loki was mostly self-sufficient, and only had momentary lapses of confusion/culture shock the majority of the time (unless he was in a grocery store. Loki hated grocery stores—too much sensory input. Most of the time, if he needed ingredients for some new culinary experiment, he’d beg Darcy to go pick them up, the cowardly jerkwad).

For a few weeks, having a brand-new quasi-significant-other, even if he was new to the planet, was kind of awesome. Loki had a place to stay in Dorchester (well, a couch to sleep on; he was basically just renting couch-space and a closet), but he rarely strayed far from Darcy’s neighborhood at first. After all, he worked right around the corner from her apartment, and to be frank, the first couple of weeks Darcy barely let him out of her bed. Not that he was complaining.

Following the first flush of holy-fuck-reunion-and-wow-will-you-look-at-that!-sexual-relationship, though, Darcy started to chafe a little. And then she started to chafe a bit more. She’d never exactly been the clingy type, and she’d never pegged Loki as someone who would hover (the guy was pretty much as autonomous as they came, from what she’d seen), but the trouble was that…well…Loki didn’t have any hobbies. His primary occupations were working at that little coffee shop—so he could rent a couch in Dorchester but rarely sleep on it—and hanging out with Darcy. It made it rather difficult for her to accomplish the things she needed to do, re: her law degree, when she had a flatteringly-attentive and astonishingly well-adjusted extraterrestrial spending every spare waking moment with her.

After the fifth night she ditched out on studying to waste time with Loki—granted, there was sex, but there was also, this time, staying up half the night playing an Asgardian variant of Egyptian Ratscrew—Darcy decided it was time to take some action. So she gently—for her—suggested that he maybe make some friends at work, for better ‘cultural immersion.’ Luckily for her law degree, Loki was smart enough to take a hint, so Darcy was able to catch up a bit with schoolwork.

Still, when it came to her relationship with Loki, Darcy spent most of her time boggled by the fact that a) they weren’t tired of each other yet—something that had happened with every single one of her prior relationships, and b) Loki seemed stable. Like, astoundingly stable. Especially for a guy who was the exact opposite of stable for the first half-a-year that she knew him, and who should still, by all rights, be having some difficulties with said stability. Three months in, though, she figured out that particular puzzle.

There were many little signs that helped her piece it all together. That he rarely talked about any of the events three years ago in New York was a red flag, for sure, and he'd almost always find some way to change the subject if Darcy mentioned anything related. Sometimes, too, he'd be really cagey about showing her what he was looking up online, and since he couldn't afford a computer of his own (no exchange rate between Asgard and Midgard, obvi, and it would look mighty suspicious if he showed up at a pawn shop with Asgardian coinage) he had to use hers. Then there was the fact that she only ever saw him wear the same three shirts over and over again, though at first she took that as him having a very particular fashion sense. 

One night, though, she finally put it all together. 

“Screw it,” said Darcy as they surveyed the charred chicken in the oven. They’d interrupted the preparation of dinner once again when she had spilled soda on her shirt, necessitating its removal and then the subsequent removal of the rest of her clothing (and his. One could never be too careful, with soda spills. Shit could be toxic or something). “Let’s just go halfsies on a pizza.”

“I’ll just make us something.” Loki turned to the fridge as Darcy used oven mitts to dump the ruined food into the garbage.

“We’d have to get more food. Unless you want pb&js.”

“That sounds fine,” said Loki, evasive.

“Nuh-uh. I want hot food, and I wanna watch the next episode of The West Wing on Netflix with you, so come on.” Snagging the front of his shirt, she dragged him toward the couch, but he pulled himself free, taking a step back toward the kitchen. “What the hell’s up with you?”

“It’s just…more economical to make food here. You start watching—I’ll join you in a little.”

“Um, why don’t I just—mess around on the internet or something while I wait?” she offered, confused.

“I won’t take too long. Maybe pasta?”

“Sure…” Loki disappeared into the kitchen again, and Darcy drifted to the sofa, picking up the laptop they shared from the coffee table. She began typing a url into the address bar when something rather interesting popped up in the 'suggested urls' drop-down.

'Disaster Victim Relief Fund.' She clicked through--it opened onto the New York City page, with information on where donations went and where to send money. Clicking into the address bar again gave her another suggestion: 'Rebuild Our City.'

Darcy made a move to stand up, but then stopped herself and closed the laptop gently, setting it aside. In the kitchen, she heard Loki filling a giant pasta pot with water.

So. Minimum wage plus tips, and he was pouring it into charities for...well, for damage he was responsible for, no matter that he hadn't been in his right mind. No wonder he didn't want to go halfsies on a pizza.

This time she did stand, and pointed a dramatic and accusing finger at Loki. "Unhand that pasta!" 

"Why?"

"Because _I_ am the one who spilled soda, which means that it's _my_ fault the chicken was extra-well-done. So stop cooking."

Deliberately, Loki set down the box of pasta and backed away from the stove, arms raised in a defensive position, lips quirked in a slight smile. 

"Great. Good." Darcy lowered her finger, and chucked a thumb over her shoulder. "Now go sit and use my GrubHub to order pizza while I take care of stuff in here." He raised his eyebrows at her. "Go!" she laughed.

"Yes, ma'am," he said dryly, and scooted past her towards the couch.

Future-her could afford to buy Loki a pizza-plus-interest, Darcy reasoned as she dumped the pasta water. She'd even get him some more shirts.

Of course, she did reserve the right to buy him shirts he'd be embarrassed to wear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Srsly boggled at the amount of positive response, readers. You are all amazing and I love you to pieces, THE END, LOVE SARAH.


	3. Too Perfect

"Oh, no! I'm so sorry, Darce!" Jen had just sloshed her lukewarm cappuccino all over Darcy's second-favorite blouse. "I'll--um--I'll get you some paper towels."

"No, it's okay." Darcy held up a hand. "I'll just go clean up in the bathroom. You finish helping Mrs. Zimmerman." Darcy gave a rueful smile to the customer, who nodded understandingly as Darcy retreated to the back room, and then down the hallway to the small employee bathroom.

It really wasn't Jen's fault, admitted Darcy, sighing when she saw the state of her blouse in the mirror. The extension cord for the cash register was taped down, but the bosslady needed to spring for one of those special covers, to make it less of a hazard.

And Darcy needed to stop ruining shirts with spilled beverages.

Holding the wet shirt away from her skin with one hand, she used a wad of paper towels to soak up some of the mess. It had really hit a wide area of her torso--it even went up as far as--

"Oh, _shit,_ " she hissed, under her breath. The pendant Loki'd given her for her birthday was dripping with coffee. She turned all her attention to that, wrapping it up in the paper towels and squeezing, and then dabbing at the chain the pendant was hung on. Putting the paper towels down on the sink, she lifted the pendant to inspect it more closely. Ugh, yuck, the coffee had gotten into the setting of one of the gemstones. She tried twisting the end of one of the paper towels to get it into the tiny space, but nothing doing.

"Darcy?" called Jen, from the back room.

"In here!" said Darcy, and tried using her pinky fingernail to dig some of the liquid out of the setting. There was a tiny _shink!_ noise as she felt the stone depress a little into the metal of the pendant, causing Darcy to hold the necklace up to her eye, startled. She felt a little tingle of terror that she might have damaged such a--really, a priceless--

Hunh. It looked fine. And the coffee was out of the setting.

"Darcy?" came Jen's voice again as she pushed the partially-open bathroom door the rest of the way in. Darcy gave her a sad little wave, one hand still holding her pendant. Jen stared at her for a moment, then said, "Where'd she go?"

Where'd she _go?_ Darcy was about to speak, then stopped herself and instead tried waving again. Jen shook her head and turned away, calling "Darcy!" again on her way down the hall.

"What the _hell?_ " Darcy breathed. She looked up at the mirror. Yup. Her reflection was still there. Back down to the pendant...now, which setting had it been? She stuck her pinky finger in, once again depressing the stone, and she felt another tingle--definitely not a tingle of terror--pass through her body. She stepped out of the bathroom and called for Jen, who turned around and clearly _saw_ her this time. "Sorry," said Darcy, a little breathless. "I stepped outside to--air out my shirt a little."

That night, she accused Loki, "Did you magic my necklace?"

He looked up from his library book (Loki thought the library was quaint. He was used to his family _owning_ all the books he would ever need. The idea of a 'public library' tickled him). "Might have. Why?"

"I turned invisible today!"

"Whoops."

"'Whoops?!' You gotta tell me this stuff!"

"You weren't invisible. It's a spell that makes people look over you."

"Like I need any help being overlooked."

"Just in case you need to hide." 

She glanced at him, confused. "Why would I need to hide?"

"It's just to keep you safe," he said, and turned back to his book.

***

Being Jewish, Darcy would only celebrate Easter if her friends were celebrating it (though of course she would take advantage of the excellent Easter candy available, because Reese's peanut butter eggs were gifts from the Bunny God). She would often tag along to friends' egg-dyeing parties, because fun! and also free eggs!

This year her friend Monique, who was Buddhist, had asked a few people to join her for a night out at a goth club. When Darcy asked her why a goth club, Monique shrugged and said "Why not? They have good cocktails." She then instructed Darcy to "Bring along that pale friend of yours. He'll fit right in."

So it was that, while digging through her closet to find every article of black clothing she owned, she was treated to the sound of Loki's preparatory shower. There were many things at which Loki excelled, but singing in the shower was not one of those things. He sounded sort of like a cat being run through a pasta machine, if that cat were singing snippets of various Asgardian and Midgardian pop songs.

Once Darcy had assembled a fairly-passable attempt at an appropriately goth club outfit, and applied approximately 3 gallons of mascara to her eyelashes, she sat down to steal some time to work on an essay for her environmental law course. The rest of the world faded out as she wrote, although she was vaguely aware of Loki passing by in a towel (her hindbrain definitely took note of this) and retrieving some items before heading back to the bathroom.

When Darcy resurfaced from essay-land, it was fifteen minutes before they had to leave. Stretching, she made her way out toward the couch when she heard two male voices echoing from the bathroom.

"No, no, no, you'll smudge it! Here, let--"

"I'm sure I can handle it." Long pause.

"You smudged it."

"I know."

"Let me do the eyeshadow, then."

By this time Darcy had reached the doorway, to discover Loki half-perched on the sink, with Sid leaning in and jabbing at Loki's eyelids with a makeup applicator. "You're doing makeup?" she asked Loki.

"I did research," he defended. "This is generally acceptable."

"He wanted to try it," explained Sid. "Now hold still." He resumed his jabbing.

"Gah!" Darcy yanked the applicator from Sid's hand. "That's not how you use that."

"Oh. Oops."

"Why did you ask _Sid_ for help with _makeup?_ "

"Hey, I was a girl for fifteen years!" said Sid. The space in the bathroom was so confined that Darcy was bent across the sink as she tried to fix the horrendously smudged eyeliner on Loki's right eye. So she and Sid jostled their way around each other into a better configuration.

"How much makeup did you wear before the age of fifteen?"

Sid lapsed into an amused and slightly frustrated silence. Loki was looking up at Darcy through his eyelashes, which was--just--criminal, it shouldn't have been allowed--and said quietly, "You were working on your 'law' studies." She heard the quotation marks click into place. "I know you don't like it when I bother you."

"You didn't have to do makeup," she said, with just a frisson of tension underlying her voice. Now the eyeshadow was making its reappearance.

"Got to look the part, haven't I?"

“He does look good in goth,” put in Sid, now leaning against the wall.

“Hunh.” Darcy finished the eyeshadow and stepped back, looking her charge up and down appraisingly. “Uh. Wow.”

“Wait, here, here.” Sid stepped forward, shouldering past Darcy, and reached up to Loki’s hair—she couldn’t see what he did, but when he stepped away— “That I know how to do.”

“Holy crap,” said Darcy, frankly. “Is that…is that _my_ shirt?”

“Like I said, goth’s a good look for Logan. Uhh…” Sid glanced back and forth between them. “Yeah, uh, I’m gonna get out of this bathroom.” He sidled out, clearly uncomfortable.

“We put him through so much,” Darcy’s mouth said, powered by the miniscule portion of her brain that wasn’t busy thinking about other things. Then, “I thought I was over my skinny goth-boy phase when I got out of high school.”

"Did you _really_ think that? You _have_ been seeing _me--_ " which was when Darcy lunged.

They were a bit late getting to the club, but overall it was a good time. Darcy caught a glimpse of most of her group in the mirror behind the bar at one point, and she and Loki looked like freaky vampires--which was kind of the point, she guessed. Eventually her feet got tired from dancing in her clunky, heavy platform shoes, so she went and collapsed at the table they had in the corner. Loki was having a shouted conversation with Monique, so Darcy listened in while she sipped her 'Black Magic' cocktail, which was a livid green and tasted vaguely like fake watermelon.

" _I can't believe we haven't talked before!_ " yelled Monique, bopping a little to the music. " _Where are you from? Sweden?_ "

" _Norway!_ "

" _Right! Well, happy Easter!_ "

" _You, too!_ "

Monique laughed, barely audible. " _Thanks! So how do you like it here?_ "

Darcy leaned in a little, trying to seem nonchalant.

" _Everything's very different to back home!_ " Darcy snorted. Wasn't that the truth. " _I like it! Everything moves very...quickly here! It's exciting!_ " 

" _Right!_ " said Monique. " _And not as many reindeer?_ "

" _Exactly!_ " Loki laughed, and turned, noticing Darcy as Monique swung herself back out onto the dance floor. "Hallo," he said in Darcy's ear. "Having fun?"

Tipping back the rest of her drink, Darcy seized his hand, pulling him out of his chair. "Let's dance."

They danced. Loki's dancing ability was about on-par with Loki's singing ability. Darcy tried to forgive him for this. The outfit helped. 

***

Shortly after Easter, the pranks began.

The first one was prompted by Darcy's refusal to watch TV with Loki. 

"I told you, Professor Green has a grudge against me! I think it's 'cause she doesn't like how I talk."

"So?"

"So I have to work extra hard to keep up in her class!"

He leveled a look at her that told her precisely how important he thought this class was to her life, which was: not at all. "Drop the class, then."

Darcy scoffed, dropping her hands to her sides. "It's too late to drop it. And it's a required class. So I have to study, okay? I'm sorry. We'll watch the next episode tomorrow."

The next morning, after a long night of cramming for a test in stupid Professor Green’s stupid required stupid class, Darcy stumbled out of bed and made her way to her dresser. She pulled open a drawer, blinked, switched on the light, and rubbed her bloodshot eyes before saying hoarsely, “I’ll kill him.”

“I’ll kill you,” she said, when he answered his cell.

“I’m at work.” She could hear the smile in his voice. “I’ll talk to you after my shift?”

“Death awaits you after your shift. _Change them back._ ” 

"Sorry, didn't catch that! Have to get back, people need their coffee!" He hung up.

Muttering death threats, Darcy surveyed her underwear drawer again. There was a lot more pink than she would have put there herself, which was to say that there was pink. There were also more happy animal cartoons. With a shudder, she picked a pair at random and got dressed to face the teacher from hell, with the knowledge that there were disturbing caricatures of bunnies under her clothing.

That evening, when Loki turned up after his shift, he knocked briefly before entering the apartment, then pulled up short at the expression on Darcy's face.

"I have hidden the Toblerones," she told him.

"What, you--?"

"All of them," she said. "And I talked to the clerks at every store in the neighborhood--they all know what you look like, and they won't sell you any."

With a placating smile, he took a step towards her. "This is rather unsporting."

"Fluffy. Bunnies," she ground out. Loki was biting his lip to keep from laughing. "No more Toblerones!" she snapped, and spun on her heel.

He held out until after dinner, when he had his inevitable chocolate craving.

Darcy knew, intellectually, that it was a really positive thing that Loki felt comfortable enough to pull pranks on her. This was essentially the Asgard equivalent of him pulling her pigtails at recess. In a way, it was sweet. 

In the way in which one morning her hat decided to start gripping her head like a boa constrictor, it was damned irritating.

When she finally succeeded in pulling the hat from her poor, tangled mop of hair, she threw the cap down like a gauntlet on the counter of The Boost in front of Loki's grinning face. "I hope you realize," said Darcy, "this means war."

She responded by putting shaving cream in his shoes, but he used magic to clean them out, so then she sat down with Sid and had a serious brainstorm session. After all, Sid didn’t know that Loki was who he was, but he did have years of experience in excellent pranks. Then once Loki had had his turn (he changed all the words in her law books to 'All work and no play makes Darcy a dull girl'), she turned all his undershirts pink, albeit in a more old-fashioned way.

Next he made it so Darcy always felt like she was in a high wind ("You can do this, but you can't magic my teeth clean?" she demanded, clutching her hat and glasses). She retaliated by covering all his belongings in the Dorchester apartment with aluminum foil. He changed all the music on her iPod to Tuvan throat singing, at which point Darcy called a halt to pranks for the time being, since it was getting to be time for finals. Loki sulked for about a day, like the great big child he was. 

***

"Ahhh!"

Sid turned his head from where he'd been watching a basketball game. "What?"

"Ahhh!" repeated Darcy, gesturing at the sad, broken components of her laptop.

"Oh. What? He said he'd put it back together."

"Hello," said Loki, coming out of the kitchenette holding a bowl of popcorn. He dropped a kiss on Darcy's lips then handed the bowl of popcorn over the back of the couch to Sid.

"Wuhhh?! Ahhh!" articulated Darcy, gesturing to the remains of her laptop.

"Hmm? Oh."

"I thought we said prank war was over!"

"Temporary ceasefire for your 'finals,'" Loki corrected.

"Whatever! Why are you disassembling my technology right when I--?!"

"Ahem," said Sid, looking back at them, then motioning to the basketball game on the TV with his head. He pointedly popped a kernel of popcorn into his mouth, then went back to watching the game.

"I'm the worst roommate," said Darcy to herself, flatly, then glowered up at Loki. Smiling, he gestured graciously that she should precede him to her bedroom. As soon as the door was closed, she started speaking again. "What did you--?!"

"I'm upgrading it for you." 

"You're _what?_ Since when do you even--?"

"Since I was a toddler."

That stopped the angry train on its tracks. "Oh. Right." Sometimes she forgot that, to Asgardians, Earth technology was like, caveman-level. "Well. But. Why _now?_ I mean. Finals. I have that giant essay due...and that other giant essay...and..." Loki was leading her, gently, to the bed, where they both sat down, and he slipped his arm around her shoulders. "I don't..."

"You've been so stressed. The upgrade should help you with your work."

Darcy heaved a heavy sigh, leaning into him, her muscles finally relaxing after a long day of class and work. "You were bored, weren't you."

"Also I was bored. But it really will help!" He jostled her a little bit. "Come on. Nice surprise?"

" _Surprising_ surprise." She sighed again. "Okay, kinda nice. Wish you'd texted me."

"...My phone might also be in pieces on the table."

"Good times."

He stroked a hand over her hair, taking care to avoid her knitted hat. "Take a break. For tonight."

"I have that essay to--"

"For a few hours," he amended. There was a pause, then Darcy nodded acquiescence. "At least while I put your computer back together." They both laughed, and she poked him in the side. "Want to watch basketball with Sid?"

"No..." Darcy smirked at him. Loki smiled back. "Sex?" she said.

"As my lady pleases."

"Royal pain in my _ass,_ " said Darcy, in the process of pulling Loki's shirt off of him.

He pulled off her hat and flung it aside, then started to work on the fastenings of her blouse. "You realize this means it'll take me longer to reassemble--?"

"Shush. Sexytime now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies for the long delay, and for the fact that this chapter is a Fluff Overload(TM). I promise that actual plot occurs in the next chapter, and not just further exposition.


	4. Conflict

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: non-sexual assault.

"Monique," she said to her friend when the door opened, "school is officially out of session."

"BOOZE!" cried Monique, who'd been waiting for this for weeks. Grabbing her purse, she locked her door and linked arms with Darcy so they could skip off down the street together.

The bar was called Starbase Zero, and despite its over-the-top Star Trek theme, the cover charge was low, the drinks were reasonably-priced, and it wasn't full of drunken screaming people. Or, at least, not yet. Mostly what it was filled with was furniture covered in small, blinking lights and décor consisting of many, many props and costumes from the various incarnations of the TV shows.

Darcy returned from the bar with a little tray of drinks. "Shots.” The shots were supposedly ‘Romulan Ale,’ but the bartender had confessed it was really just vodka with blue food coloring. As one, she and Monique seized their shot glasses and tossed back the liquid inside. Then they each reached for their second drinks and settled back in their seats. Darcy sipped at her ‘Self-Sealing Stem Bolt’ while Monique tried a taste of her ‘Cardassian Sunrise,’ which Darcy had definitely mispronounced up at the bar. "Why do you like theme bars so much?"

Monique shrugged. "I think they're funny. So—you're done!"

"For the year, at least." 

"You excited?"

"I don't think it's hit me yet." She sipped her drink. "Lok—gan." She cleared her throat. "Logan would love this place." Loki had recently discovered Star Trek, and Darcy finally had to admit to herself that the guy she was dating was a closet nerd. ‘Magic and science are one and the same,’ more like ‘if you’re into magic you’re a total science geek.’ It wasn’t that she begrudged Loki his Star Trek. It just wasn't her thing—too philosophical, she liked action/adventure stuff more—but Loki really dug it. He thought it was 'adorable' how humans had envisioned the future of technology.

"Yeah, where is your guy tonight?" Monique asked.

Darcy cut her eyes to the side. "He's—hanging with some friends of his from work." Playing some tabletop game called ‘Pandemic.’ Not that that bothered her or anything, that he wasn’t here.

Monique gave her a considering look, then after a moment reached across the table and patted Darcy's hand. "I'm proud of you, for finishing your second year."

"Yeah."

"Now let's party like it's 2399." They grinned and clinked glasses.

***

Several hours and more drinks later, at around the time that Darcy began to really have trouble pronouncing the sci-fi terminology (“Shelf-sealing shem—um, ben stolts—um. Same again?”), they did a last bathroom run and then oozed out onto the street.

Consulting her phone, Monique pointed one way down the road. “Google Maps says this way.”

“Okay,” said Darcy agreeably, slinging a hand over her friend’s back. “Y’know—y’know, your brother should be _so grateful_ he has you, y’know? You’re really—”

“Whoops.” Monique swung them around and they tottered precariously, nearly tripping over a fire hydrant. “I meant this way.”

“—really, really, like…what was I saying?”

“Darcy’s a third-year law student!” cried Monique to the nearly-empty street, throwing a fist in the air. 

“Whoo-hoo!” echoed Darcy, punching her fist up as well. Monique started swaying her hand back and forth over her head, and Darcy followed her lead, resulting in her losing her footing and taking a sharp step down off the curb. “We taking the T?” she recovered.

“Naw, your place’s really close. Like…” Her friend squinted at the screen of her phone, and then turned it around a couple of times. “Like, ten minutes? I think. Turn left!” They turned onto a residential street. “Should prob’ly be more quiet. People sleeping.”

“Your _brother!_ , that’s what I was saying,” said Darcy, a little more quietly than before. “He should be glad to have you. You let him stay with you! Him an’ his, an’ his, ya know—”

“Stench?”

“—an’ his, an’ his—you’re a good friend, ‘Nique.” Darcy draped herself more fully across her friend’s shoulders.

Monique sighed. “I am.”

“We should SING!”

“Shhhh! People sleeping, ‘member?”

“Ohhhh, right, right, right.”

Concentrating on walking kept them silent for a few minutes, except for Monique’s occasional instructions via Google Maps. Eventually they made a turning onto a more main road, close to Darcy’s building, and it was right next to an empty storefront that it happened.

The man’s foul breath in her ear registered before the fact that he had her arm twisted up behind her back and a hand over her mouth. Another man held Monique around the waist with a knife to her throat before either of the women could make a sound.

“Let’s not play around, ladies,” said the rough voice next to Darcy’s ear. “Just give us any money you got, any valuables, and we’ll be done here.”

“Okay,” quavered Monique, staring at the blade that was held steadily about five inches from her neck. “Sure.”

“You got that, sweetheart?” The stink of the man’s halitosis was like a trickle of cold water down Darcy’s spine. She forced her thoughts to move faster, past the haze of alcohol. Did the man holding her have a weapon? Think, Darcy, think! No, he didn’t, he mustn’t, or he’d be showing it the way Monique’s captor was. “ _Got it?_ ” said the man, and Darcy, catching Monique’s eye, nodded, the burglar’s hand moving with her. 

It was damned lucky her purse was on the side of her unrestrained arm. On a slow inhale, Darcy slipped her hand into her bag, then in one movement yanked her body away from her captor, heedless of the pain it caused her arm, and let loose with a can of pepper spray right in the thief’s eyeballs.

Screaming and cursing, the man backed away from her, clutching his eyes, and Darcy pulled her taser from the special pocket in her purse. “Back the fuck away from my friend, dude,” she told the armed thief, moving slowly around him and Monique, voice barely shaking. The guy’s eyes were wide and panicked. He made a move as if to slice Monique, which was fortunately exactly the moment that Darcy had a clear shot. With the buzzing of electricity, the thief dropped like a tree, knife skittering away along the pavement. 

There was a sound of footsteps behind her, and Darcy glanced back to see Halitosis Man high-tailing it away down an alley. When she turned back, Monique had taken a couple of trembling steps away from her attacker, then fallen on her knees to retch onto the dirt of the empty lot.

Darcy fumbled with her phone a minute before managing to dial 9-1-1, though the conversation passed in a blur. Once the police arrived, they wanted to take hers and Monique’s statements several times over, but finally Darcy said, “Guys, look, we gotta get home, okay? We’re just gonna go. You have it from here,” took Monique’s hand and walked away. They were only three blocks from her apartment.

“That was amazing,” Monique said quietly, as they approached the stoop, her clammy hand still clenched in Darcy’s. “How did you even do that?”

“I’ve seen worse,” she replied with false bravado. Comparatively, Frost Giants, Dark Elves, and giant death machines from outer space definitely figured as worse, but all were a tad more dreamlike than two up-close-and-personal human beings threatening to injure you. “One time I tased a crazy homeless guy in the middle of the desert,” she said, to reassure herself.

Monique wouldn’t let go of her hand, which made it hard to unlock the front door, and when she managed to get the door partially ajar, someone else wrenched it the rest of the way open from the other side, causing Darcy to stumble back, pushing Monique behind her and raising her keys defensively.

It was Loki. Darcy sagged in relief. 

“Where have you _been?_ ” he demanded, and ushered them into the small lobby area. 

Once they were inside, Monique plastered herself against Darcy, beginning to cry. Patting her back, Darcy said, dryly, “Out.” Over Monique’s shoulder, she saw vague panic in Loki’s features. “How come you’re here?”

“You weren’t answering your cell.” On the surface he seemed calm, but she could detect an undercurrent of…something. “What happened?” He gestured at Monique.

“She saved my life is what happened.” Monique pulled herself away from Darcy, swiping at her face. “That was badass as hell.”

“Aw, shucks,” said Darcy.

“She Maced one guy and then she tased the other one—it was like something out of a self-defense handbook or something,” Monique managed between light sobs. 

Darcy stepped forward again. “You okay, dude?”

“That was just…scary.”

“Yeah, I totally lost my buzz, how about you?” Monique laughed and hugged Darcy again.

“Are you all right to get home?” put in Loki. “Do you need someone to walk you?”

“Um,” Monique sniffled, pulling out her phone, “um, I think I’ll just call my brother for a ride. See, he is good for something,” she added to Darcy, with a hesitant smile.

“We’ll wait with you,” Loki said, and they sat on the stairs and waited. Once off the phone, Monique grabbed hold of Darcy’s hand and held it as if it were her last tether to sanity, and didn’t let go until her brother’s car pulled up outside.

“Well, congrats again,” offered Monique, after another hug, and she and Darcy laughed. 

“Thanks for the drinks, it was definitely, uh, _memorable._ ” More relieved laughter, and then the door shut behind Monique and Darcy and Loki listened to the car drive off down the street. Then there was silence in the small room, other than the sounds of their breathing. Bracing herself, she pivoted to face the music.

“Why were you out by yourselves at two in the morning?” His voice was low and dangerous.

“I’m fine.” Darcy brushed past him and started climbing the stairs to her apartment. “Thanks for asking.”

“You could have called, I could have come and walked you.”

“Not gonna lie, it’s a little creepy that you were waiting here for me.”

“I was worried. _Rightly so._ ”

“Well, I _handled it,_ ” she said, whirling on him at the top of the stairs. They held each others’ eyes for a moment before she abruptly went back to unlocking the apartment door. _Ch-clunk,_ the door opened and Darcy dropped her purse on the couch, moving towards the bathroom when Loki’s hand clasped her shoulder and spun her, somewhat roughly, to face him. “Whoa!” she said, her voice hushed—all the lights were off, Sid was obviously asleep. “Not okay!”

Dropping his hand from her shoulder, Loki pinned her instead with the intensity of his glare. “Why would you put yourself in danger like that?!” His voice, too, was low. “What was _so important_ that you had to—?”

“I was _celebrating,_ okay?”

“You should have _stayed in_ and celebrated.”

“Well, what the hell fun’s that?! You hit a major milestone, you go out for drinks! That’s what _humans_ do!” Realizing that her voice had risen in volume, she lowered it to a whisper again. “But I guess you wouldn’t understand _human_ stuff!”

“What I _don’t_ understand is how— _reckless_ you are with your own life! You could easily have been killed--!”

“That’s humans for ya! Reckless and easily broken!” Darcy scoffed. “Not how you grow ‘em back home!”

With a hint of a sneer about his lips, Loki retorted, “Were I as fragile as you, I would not take such risks—”

“That doesn’t matter! It doesn’t _matter!_ I could fall down the stairs tomorrow morning and break my neck! I could choke on a sandwich! Someone could drop a piano on me!”

“Ssst!” Loki shushed her, and they both waited for an anxious moment to hear if Sid had awoken.

“I went out tonight,” she said, slowly and deliberately, “with my friend, to celebrate my second year of law school. And I _know_ you think ‘Oh, her little human school, isn’t that funny, but it’s not really _important,_ ’ but it’s _important_ to me!”

“What is _important,_ ” he rejoined, drawing himself up, his voice rising, “is that you not walk unprotected in dangerous areas in the middle of the night!”

“We are in _Cambridge!_ It’s not like it’s—” she cast about for a minute “— _Detroit!_ Geez!”

“It happened _here!_ ” Loki shouted. He was using his height to tower over her, imperious. “From now on, when you go out—”

“No, no, no—you don’t get to dictate to me like I’m a _kid_ or a _pet_ or something—”

“I’ll dictate to you when you are being _foolish._ ”

“Look, I get it, the novelty’s finally wearing off!” yelled Darcy. “You’re getting tired of playing house with the Neanderthals! I know you’re bored! So you’ve had your fling with a lowly human, and now you’re done! And maybe my law degree doesn’t seem significant to someone with your—upbringing—but it is significant to me—”

The light switched on in Sid’s room, and he cracked open his door. “Guys, what the hell?” he said, sleepy and annoyed.

It was silent for a moment, the memory of their argument reverberating around the living room. 

“Sorry, Sid,” said Darcy eventually, two fingers playing with a loose thread on the couch to her left. “We’ll shut up.”

The door closed again and his light switched off.

“Should we…discuss things further in your bedroom?” said Loki after a moment, his jaw tight. That way they could use the soundproofing spells he’d put up to shout at each other some more.

“No,” she said, shortly, and took a breath. “This is normally the part where I’d storm out, but I live here, so I want you to go.” She tilted her head up to look him in the eye from where she’d been staring at the couch. The lines of his body were rigid, his face unreadable. He looked otherworldly, terrifying, every inch the prince of another realm. “Go.”

He went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK. And I am SO SORRY that it took me so long to be back. First my beta reader went on hiatus (my sister got married! Who DOES that?!), then I went searching for a new beta reader to cover but that fell through, and then my sister was crazy busy, and then _I_ was crazy busy, but things are FINALLY back on track, YAYYYYYYY!
> 
> Hope y'all liked this chapter. Didn't I promise conflict? Eh? Eh?


	5. Unhealthy Relationship Practices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Sorry, sis’. Too busy,” Darcy said, leaning forward to fiddle with the spoon from the cereal she’d eaten nearly two hours before.
> 
> “No, you’re not. Your Facebook status says, and I quote, ‘Hells yeah, out of school with a week off to live the high life,’ and there’s a selfie with a friend where you’ve got your faces smushed together.”

The alcohol in Darcy’s system meant that she did get to sleep eventually, after she flushed the lingering adrenaline from her bloodstream with about a gallon of water. The water meant she didn’t have a hangover, at least, though her arm was kinda sore from being twisted during the assault last night. When she woke up at 6:30, her brain told her that she was definitely up for the day, so she dragged herself from her bed, feeling like an unwashed sock. 

 

Breakfast was eaten staring at a blank television. When Sid emerged from his bedroom, Darcy was still sitting there on the couch, cradling her cereal bowl. 

 

Sid stretched and yawned and said, “Hey, so what was that all about last night?” With the strange, eerie manner of a wind-up doll, Darcy turned her head to face her roommate. Whatever it was that he saw on her face convinced him to mumble an apology and beat a retreat to the bathroom.

 

An hour later, Darcy had just made the drastic decision to put her empty bowl down on the coffee table when her phone rang from the depths of her purse. Pulling it out, she stared at it vacantly for a moment before answering.

 

“What?”

 

“Hey, little sis’!” It was Chelsea. She was entirely too perky.

 

“Hey.”

 

“Something wrong?”

 

“No. No, I’m good.” Darcy thought for a moment. “Actually, some guys tried to mug me and my friend last night.”

 

“What?!”

 

“But don’t worry, I kicked their asses.”

 

“Oh.” Chelsea waited, but Darcy was not forthcoming with any further information. “Well, I’m glad you’re okay.” Another pause, then she continued, with exaggerated cheer in her voice, “So what are you up to today?”

 

“You need something, don’t you.”

 

“Congratulations on finishing your second year, by the way.”

 

“Chelsea.”

 

Her older sister sighed. “Okay, I do need your help. My assistant is out with food poisoning, and the woman who usually comes in to fill in is out of town.”

 

“What about a temp agency?”

 

“No, you have to fill out lots of paperwork to get it set up.”

 

“Sorry, sis’. Too busy,” Darcy said, leaning forward to fiddle with the spoon from the cereal she’d eaten nearly two hours before.

 

“No, you’re not. Your Facebook status says, and I quote, ‘Hells yeah, out of school with a week off to live the high life,’ and there’s a selfie with a friend where you’ve got your faces smushed together.”

 

“You can’t ask Pam?” whined Darcy.

 

“I don’t like to have my girlfriend in the workplace with me, you know that,” Chelsea said. “Business and pleasure should be—”

 

“—separate, yeah, yeah. Ughhhh, the things I do for love,” Darcy said, pushing herself to her feet to go pack. “What’ll you pay me?”

 

“Room and board and my everlasting gratitude?”

 

“Boooo.”

 

***

 

“Yes, Mrs. Kirby. No, I do understand that you—well, her schedule is all booked up and there’s a lot of backlog—I know that you need to see her. Of course it’s important, I—…really? That much inflammation? Maybe you should see a doc—? Okay, I’m doing my best here, but I don’t see a way to get you in before Tuesday…No, I’m not the ‘regular girl.’ That doesn’t mean I’m incompet—listen, lady, my sister is a good nutritionist, but there’s only one of her! And until we work out the science of perfect human duplication—Tuesday.  _ Tuesday. _ At 3:30. Yes. Yes.  _ You’re welcome, _ ” finished Darcy, with saccharine sweetness. There was a ‘click’ signaling the disconnect of the line, whereupon she brought the phone receiver up to her mouth and started biting it and growling.

 

“Darce? You okay?” asked Chelsea, who was walking by with a cup of coffee.

 

Finished biting the receiver, Darcy began barking at the phone itself, then with great care, unplugged the phone cord and threw the entire thing against a wall.

 

“…Was that Mrs. Kirby?” Darcy gave a half-hearted snarl in response. “She’s always like that.” Chelsea cautiously came around the desk and pulled over a chair, moving as if afraid of upsetting a wild animal. “You okay?”

 

“I am  _ great. _ ” Folding her arms, Darcy leaned back in her chair and began kicking the floor idly to spin herself.

 

“Okay, maybe it’s time to call it quits. It is 6:30. I’m sorry I brought you in today—I know you’re tired from the bus.”

 

“No, it’s okay, you clearly need the help,” Darcy mumbled.

 

Chelsea took a sip of her coffee and stared at her younger sister. Darcy squirmed. “Darcy,” said Chelsea finally, “is something bugging you?”

 

“Nope!” Darcy said, spinning her chair again. “Fine and dandy!”

 

“I mean, you did almost get mugged last night—”

 

“ _ Not _ as big a deal as people are making about it—”

 

“But I know you were able to handle that, and what people?” Darcy spun her chair faster. “Darcy?” Chelsea insisted.

 

“Tell me about your life,” evaded Darcy. “How are things?”

 

Chelsea scoffed. “You’ve seen how things are. Things are hectic. Stop deflecting.”

 

“Tell me about Pam,” Darcy prompted.

 

“I spent our entire lunch break gushing about Pam! We’ve established that she is the most perfect human being on the planet! Now—what is it? Are you worried about what grades you’ll get on your finals? Are you…nervous about your internship next week?  _ What is wrong? _ ” 

 

“Nothing is wrong. You’re hallucinating due to stress. I’m not even here right now.”

 

“Darcy…”

 

“Fine, fine!” Reaching out quickly, Darcy nabbed the coffee cup from her sister’s hands and took a sip of that sweet, sweet caffeine. “Okay,” she said, and took a deep breath. “I have something…I have something to tell you.” Gathering her courage, she looked up into Chelsea’s eyes, which were wide and worried, and said, “I’ve been in…kind of…a really, real adult relationship.”

 

It took a full five seconds for Chelsea to start laughing with relief. It started as a chuckle, but escalated quickly until she was near howling with laughter.

 

“Oh my God I hate you right now,” said Darcy.

 

“That’s  _ it?!  _ I thought you were gonna tell me you  _ killed  _ a man or something!”

 

Darcy set the coffee down on the desk, in order to better gesticulate. “Chelsea, when have I  _ ever _ stayed in a relationship for longer than a month?”

 

“Good point,” Chelsea said, winding down a bit and wiping a tear from her eye. “Phew. Hah. Wow. Hah. So. Who’s the lucky person? The only one you’ve ever even hung around with that long is—” Chelsea stopped talking when she saw Darcy freeze in place, so Chelsea froze, too. “Wait.”

 

“Um,” said Darcy, turning bright red and starting to fiddle with her hair.

 

“You’re telling me—? No.  _ No. _ They sent him back—it was on the  _ news _ —you—”

 

“How do you figure this stuff  _ out?! _ ” cried Darcy.

 

“Big sister magic.”

 

“That’s amazing, you’ve gotta bottle that stuff,” cracked Darcy.

 

“So he’s seriously—we are talking about the same person here, right? He’s seriously back on Earth? How?” 

 

“Yes, it’s Loki,” said Darcy, cheeks flaming red again. She wanted to hide behind the coffee cup again, but Chelsea had taken it hostage. “And yes, he’s back on Earth.” Briefly, Darcy outlined how Loki was dodging his parole, and—

 

“Working in a  _ coffee shop?  _ How does  _ that _ even compare to attempted global domination? Don’t you worry that he’s gonna go back to…to…?”

 

“Super villainy?” provided Darcy. “Not really. He wasn’t prone to it before his psychotic break, or so Thor says—“

 

“But has he ever hurt you?” Chelsea looked into her sister’s eyes, solemn. “This could be really dangerous. You’ve thought about that, right?” Darcy twisted her lips to the side, nodding. “This is really wild, Darce.”

 

“I know, my life has been trippy as hell ever since my internship in New Mexico, the Land of Enchantment.”

 

Chelsea gave her a suspicious look. “Why, what happened in New Mexico?”

 

“Nothing,” said Darcy quickly. “Wanna see a pic of me and Loki?” She fished her cell phone from her pocket and called up a selfie they’d taken together when she’d taken him to see the fancy Christmas tree lights at Faneuil Hall.

 

“Whoa,” said Chelsea.

 

“I  _ know, _ ” Darcy responded.

 

“You guys look like movie stars.”

 

“It’s repulsive, really,” said Darcy, shaking her head.

 

“He should get a haircut.”

 

“This  _ is  _ him with a haircut. Apparently it’s all the rage in Asgard.”

 

“And how long did you say you’d been together?”

 

“I didn’t. Um,” she counted in her head. “Eight months?”

 

Chelsea set down her coffee cup and put her hand down beside it to brace herself. “Holy shit, Darce. This is  _ huge. _ ”

 

“Let’s talk about something else.”

 

“ _ Eight months? _ ”

 

“Well, yeah, but to him that’s like, three days! I mean, I’m basically like his summer fling.”

 

Chelsea sat back in her seat, watching her sister thoughtfully.

 

“Yeah,” said Darcy. “I think being on Earth, it’s like, Loki’s way of going to college or something. You know, first time living away from home…having to do his own laundry…plus, our tech to Asgard tech is like an arrowhead is to an iPhone or something. I think it’s kind of like camping for him. You know, extended camping trip with a bunch of broke twenty-somethings.”

 

“Where’d you get that necklace?” said Chelsea suddenly, after a brief pause.

 

“Huh?” Darcy clutched the pendant in question.

 

“You don’t wear necklaces. You wear scarves.”

 

“Um. Loki gave it to me. Hey!” Chelsea had snatched the pendant out of Darcy’s hand, and was now breathing coffee breath in Darcy’s face so she could squint at it. Eventually, she let the slim piece of metal fall back into Darcy’s hand, sitting back.

 

“Nice.”

 

“Thanks,” said Darcy, guarded. “Here, look, he did this, too.”  Pulling her laptop out of her bag, she promptly threw it against the wall, where it began to glow a pretty amber color, bounced off, and floated gently back into her hands.

 

“Boy, I can see he’s really sick of you,” Chelsea said flatly.

 

Pointing intently at the laptop, Darcy said, “He did this when he was  _ bored! _ ”

 

“Come on,” Chelsea grabbed Darcy’s hand and hauled her to her feet. “ _ We, _ ” she began dramatically,  _ “are going to get— _ ICE CREAM.”

 

Darcy answered her cue with a tired, “Noooooo.”

 

“YES.  _ To the parlor! _ ” Chelsea began to march to the door, prompting Darcy to protest that Wait, Chelsea, her stuff, hey, no, & etc.

 

***

 

Darcy didn’t tell her big sister about the fight. Partly because she didn’t want to rain on Chelsea’s parade (her sister was so blissed-out over Pam most of the time—when she wasn’t busy with work—and full of news about how they might  _ get a dog _ or  _ move in together _ and all that grown-up happy stuff), but also because if she talked about it, that would mean thinking about it, and she really, really didn’t want to think about it.

 

So she didn’t. She didn’t have much time to think, anyway: Chelsea’s business was booming, which meant that Darcy was kept occupied every hour of the working day. Then after work, Chelsea would cook, oftentimes with Pam’s assistance (they knew better than to enlist Darcy), and they’d have Fun Family Dinners, followed by Darcy clearing the table and then conking right out on the couch until she woke up and started the whole mess over again.

 

If Chelsea was at all in tune with the fact that her sister was holding something back, the only way she’d show it was with a concerned look now and then, and a little more ‘sisterly affection’ (usually in the form of noogies).

 

Then came Saturday, which was the day that Darcy couldn’t pretend that she didn’t need to get back to Boston to prepare for her internship. Tucked into her bus seat, she plugged in her earbuds and turned her iPod up to full blast, closing her eyes and trying to shut out the world.

 

Which was why the huge jolt and  _ BANG! _ noise came as such a big surprise. “What the hell?!” she said out loud, yanking out an earbud to hear a cacophony of similar questions from the other passengers on the bus. A glance out the window answered no questions, so the din got louder and louder until the bus driver finally came back up the stairs at the front—Darcy hadn’t realized that the driver had  _ left _ —and made an announcement.

 

“Ladies and gentlemen, I’m afraid that there has been a malfunction with the engine, and it has caused us to blow out a tire.” Groans and mutters of frustration. “We’re gonna have another bus coming to pick you all up and take you to the nearest station, which is in Portland. They’ll give you more news there. Sorry, folks.”

 

The bus to take them to the Portland terminal took an hour to arrive. When they got to Portland, they were let off the bus to mill around like small, angry cattle, until there was more news: the company was re-routing a bus to come and get them, but it would be another two-and-a-half hours before it arrived, and the company was very sorry and would be refunding everyone’s tickets. Rolling her eyes, Darcy turned on her phone for the first time in a few days and did some catching-up with some of her friends, skipping right over the contact in her list labeled ‘Buttmunch’ (Darcy had never been much good with pet names).

 

Two hours later, the crowd was told the re-routed bus was running late and it would be another hour-and-a-half. A couple of passengers disappeared to find other ways home, but the group that stayed started showing some solidarity. Snacks were passed around. Chatting about families happened. One little kid laughed at a bunch of Darcy’s jokes before his parents dragged him away from the bad influence.

 

When the bus did show up everyone trooped onto it, exhausted, and all was well for a little over an hour until they hit rush hour traffic in Boston, at which point Darcy pulled her cell out again and sent a text to ‘Buttmunch.’

 

_ having the WORST day. cn i come c u?  _ Her heart was in her throat as she hit ‘Send.’

 

Less than a minute later, her phone buzzed with a reply:  _ Yes. _

 

Well, whoop-dee-doo.

 

***

 

There was a light on in the apartment, but none of the designated parking spots were occupied, which meant she knew exactly who was home, and almost meant that she got right back on the subway to run home to Cambridge. But Darcy knew that she was tougher than that, so she took a deep breath and knocked on the door.

 

Then Loki was in front of her, and it felt like it had been so long that it was like seeing a stranger with a familiar face. For once he wasn’t wearing one of his overly-formal button-down shirts, but instead a t-shirt that she’d bought him that had a caffeine molecule on it.

 

“Hi,” she said.

 

“Come in.” 

 

She dragged in her duffel and closed the door while he disappeared into another room. The air felt close with all the unresolved issues floating around. “Hey, so, uh,” she called, dumping her bag on the couch—his couch—the one that he slept on, “we should probably, um, talk about, uh, what…happened…” 

 

Loki was back and holding a plate of something out to her. “Here.”

 

Darcy stared, uncomprehending. “What is it?”

 

“Er…” He scratched the back of his neck. “It was meant to be cookies. But something went wrong.”

 

It did not look like cookies. It looked like sad mostly-cooked puddles of goo with occasional chocolate chips.

 

“You made me cookies,” said Darcy, stupidly.

 

“ _ Attempted  _ to.”

 

“We have a big fight, I don’t talk to you for a week and then I tell you I’m having a bad day and you make me cookies.”

 

“I shouldn’t have shouted,” Loki said, in a rush. “I should know better.”

 

“You really shouldn’t have shouted.”

 

“I won’t shout again if you won’t throw yourself into danger again.”

 

“I’ll…do my best.” He gave her a look. “What? I can’t control other people!” She shifted a little, uncomfortable. “It was like go-cry-to-your-mommy scary, okay? I didn’t  _ ask _ for it to happen.”

 

There was a long moment, then he sighed and leaned forward to hug her, setting the cookies down on a side table. “No, you didn’t.” He tucked her head under his chin. “I’m sorry I yelled.”

 

She breathed deeply. His shirt smelled like baking and laundry detergent. “Sorry I yelled back.” Darcy broke away from their embrace, and tugged at his hand so they’d both sit down on the couch next to her duffel. With a long exhalation of breath, she leaned her head against his shoulder. “Serves me right for dating a seventeen-year-old.”

 

Loki burst out laughing. “I’m not seventeen!” he protested, in vain.

 

“You  _ glued my hat to my head. _ ” He was still laughing. “No, you’re right. You’re not seventeen; you’re twelve.”

 

“You had declared war!”

 

“That was  _ after  _ the hat.”

 

This gave him pause. “Oh. Right.”

 

“Your mind is going.”

 

“I thought I was seventeen?”

 

“It’s the hormones,” Darcy said, with a dramatic sigh. “Having a summer fling is natural for teenagers.”

 

“How about old men?”

 

“Them, too.” Loki shoved her lightly with his shoulder, so she shoved him back with hers. “We should get tacos,” she said after a minute.

 

He tugged on her hand to get her attention, and caught her eyes with his. “I am happy here.”  _ Here _ apparently meant  _ Earth. _ Or possibly  _ with you, _ which was slightly more terrifying to contemplate.

 

Twisting her lips a little, she processed this. “You did bake me cookies.”

 

“They’re terrible cookies,” he said ruefully.

 

“Still. You’re royalty, and you stooped to baking me cookies.”

 

“I hardly think I’m still in the line of succession.”

 

“Shhh! Don’t spoil it!” Then, after another pause, “I’m sorry.” She pulled her glasses off, fiddling with them. Loki was playing with the ends of her hair. “For the stuff I said. That you don’t think my law school’s important.”

 

“But I don’t think it’s important.” Darcy tensed. “They’re just putting you through the paces, you ought to be able to just go and get licensed, you’re smart enough for it.”

 

“Well, duh, of course I am.” She swiped at her eyes with the sleeves of her travel hoodie. Clearing her throat noisily, she reminded him, “Tacos.”

 

“Don’t you want cookies?” he joked, standing and grabbing Darcy’s hand to pull her to her feet.

 

“No, I think I’m gonna laminate them. Sell ‘em as modern art.” Picking up her purse, she went through the apartment door when he opened it for her. “Did you even use a recipe?”

 

“I didn’t have a computer,” he defended as he closed and locked the door.

 

“Make excuses all you want, we both just know you fail at baking.”

 

“I make excellent pasta,” protested Loki.

 

“ _ Passable _ pasta.”

 

“It’s better than yours!”

 

They bickered all the way to the taco stand.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BACK! MWAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
> 
> Thank you all for your patience, and your wonderful, wonderful comments and kudos. I really appreciate it - it's what's brought me back to this story, in the hopes of finishing it (FINALLY).


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